Thursday, 13 December 2012

When chatting on benefits forums and threads, how many times
have you heard people say ‘there’s someone up the road from me claiming all s/he
can …s/he’s a money-grabbing skiver and knows how to get all s/he can out of the
system’? Or words to that effect.

It struck me as odd how people always knew ‘somebody up the
road’ who was ‘scamming the system’ because of course, they’re really going to
pour out their personal health problems to their sworn enemies, aren’t they?Private and intimate health matters are
exactly that – so how come these ‘nosey-parkers’ know so much about someone
else’s private and intimate health conditions and what they’re claiming?

It’s simple.These are people you presume are your friends, why else
would you confide in them?Maybe
they’re your neighbours who you stop and chat with and ask each other how
you’re doing.Maybe you let slip a
few personal details because they’re neighbours, aren’t they?You think they’re interested in your
health and how you’re doing but really you have to be on guard against these
people because what they’re really doing is gleaning the facts from you.They’re gathering information from you
so they can pass judgement on what little amount of information you’ve
volunteered.Maybe you confided in
them about your depression or your fibromyalgia and the fact that you’re
getting DLA. Maybe they’re seeing you on
a good day if you’re out and about and they naturally think you’re faking
it.Oh they won’t pass judgment to
your face – that would give the game away, surely – no, these are the types who
spatter it all over public forums and the like.

So the moral of this blog is – don’t confide your personal details to
passing acquaintances or anyone you don’t trust one hundred per cent.It’s none of their business. They’re
not doctors, they don’t know your medical history and why would you tell
them?Even your closest family
members and friends may not be privy to this information so don’t give these
snoopers ammunition to use it – most likely wrongly – against you.

Thursday, 29 November 2012

I have just seen a copy of the memo that the government have produced regarding new and worrying developments for those in the ESA WRAG group. This was first leaked in The Guardian back in September and I have alerted my MP about it (to no avail - she is a Tory and complicit). But seeing the memo is quite chilling. It is entitled:Work Programme Provider Live Running Memo

Here are some quotes from it:

"The purpose of this memo
is to inform you that an amendment will be made toChapter 3c – work
experience on a voluntary basis and community benefit workplacement."

"Currently, community benefit work placements
are not available to Employment andSupport Allowance Work Related Activity
Group (ESA WRAG) participants. It hasnow been agreed Work Programme providers
will be able to use mandatory workplacements as another measure through which
to help ESA WRAG participantsmove
closer to the labour market."

Decoded this means that because the Work
Programme has failed in other respects, ESA WRAG claimants are now going to be
used as guinea pigs and bullied. They are worth more to the providers don’t
forget – a provider can get £14,000 pounds for every person they get off
benefits.

"Evidence also suggests that
work can have a positive impact on the long term health of people with disabilities and health conditions."

Actually, this is only part of the picture. The right sort of work at
the right sort of pay is good for some people some of the time. Mandating
(bullying) people onto a Work programme is likely to be counterproductive. Let
us not forget that for many people the wrong sort of work at the wrong time is
actually bad for their health and can be disastrous.

And get this:

"The opportunity for ESA WRAG participants to take part in
mandatory communitybenefit work placements
will be introduced from the 3rd December 2012."

This is confirmation that
sick people may be left with just £28 to live on as a result of increased sanctions. When I wrote to my MP she
said that sick and disabled people would be protected but those who could work
would ‘be made to work’. Note also the creepy language – couched as an ‘opportunity’
followed by the sinister word ‘mandatory’.So, what - they seriously think sick people are going to say
‘oh thank you for the opportunity to force me onto the Work Programme’?!

The last paragraph almost
looks like a disclaimer:

"It is worth noting that
there is a greater emphasis throughout guidance is on ensuringthat the activity
identified is appropriate for the participants health condition ordisability and being
aware of their barriers to work, includingill health/disability andany reasonable
adjustment requirements when organising an activity with anemployer."

So please – could someone tell me in what situation a sick or disabled
person will be forced onto the Work Programme? If they volunteer that's all well and good but I can’t think of any reason
to mandate a sick or disabled person in this way. It is barbaric. Simple as.

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

I saw your video link where you were talking about the cost of
prescriptions that people get for free for conditions such as Hypertension and Type
II Diabetes which you say are ‘predominantly to do with lifestyle’. I beg your pardon? Ah, so people choose to have Diabetes
and Hypertension, thanks for telling us, Mr Lee. I had hypertension at the young of age eighteen and of
course that must have been ‘a lifestyle choice’ - silly me. Can you also tell me why you all bandy these mantras about? I'm hearing so much about this 'lifestyle choice', it sounds so sweet and innocuous, as if we're choosing between a relaxing life in the sun or perhaps a world cruise. Make it sound like a choice and you can then get away with blaming the individual for their obesity, addiction, and now – increasingly – other
conditions. Isn't that the real reason behind such a phrase, Mr Lee? Isn't it just a euphemism for saying it's all your fault? And I heard you describe these debilitating illnesses - Hypertension and Type II Diabetes - and by association the people who suffer from them - as ‘an increasing
burden on the National Health Service’. (The 'burden’ word again – the same
rhetoric that was used in pre-war Germany, let us remember). You go on to talk about 'moving the
locus of that responsibility for health care from the state to the individual'. What you really mean is making people with these conditions pay for their drugs. By
doing that you would, in your words, be ‘attaching a consequence to lifestyle choice’. (You couldn't resist that phrase again, could you?) But you didn't finish it there - you went on to talk about the
‘differences in generations in their attitude towards arthritic pain’. You praise the wartime generation – as if somehow they have no need for the NHS
and its services. But you give away your real agenda which is that when the ‘incredibly stoic… wartime generation
have passed on…with their attitude towards their lives, their pain, their
suffering that appears to be significantly different to their children’ the
shit will really hit the fan.
Your real fear is when ‘that huge number’ of baby-boomer children – that group born between 1945 and 1955
hit their 70s and 80s between 2015 and 2030. ‘Their expectations, their demands
upon the system are going to be immense,’ you say. Excuse me?
Well, I don’t quite fit into that Baby Boomer group, not by your definition at any rate, Mr Lee, but watch out, matey. There are all those of us born in the late 50s, 60s and 70s who
expect good health and longevity, and what, pray, is wrong with that? You seem to be bemoaning the fact that
the NHS has been successful in achieving greater longevity and alleviation of pain, rather than celebrating its
achievements. And for your information, Mr Lee, my parents are both of that wartime generation. My late father
had Type II Diabetes and was certainly glad of the NHS for his treatments. My mother too, is of that generation,
and certainly she is stoic, but does that mean she shouldn’t be relieved of any
pain and suffering? That she should put up and shut up? She is actually furious about what is happening to the NHS.

Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Last week's Question Time, Thursday November 8th, included Jane Moore of The Sun who at one point talked about 'helping the genuinely vulnerable and disabled'. Now coming from one of The Sun's mouthpieces, it was a small step forward, that the vulnerable in society even got a mention.
But.
She immediately killed it dead with that one word 'genuinely'. That one word speaks volumes and we're hearing it more and more. By inserting that word before the 'sick and disabled' (where it is usually inserted) these media and government spokespeople are causing untold damage. They know exactly what they're doing, of course. They don't have to spell it out because the inference is deafening: there are a whole lot of ungenuine sick and disabled people out there who are, in more popular parlance, 'faking it' or 'scrounging off the state'. Such use of language is dangerous and brutal. The rise in disability hate crime has coincided with this vile propaganda.
Jane Moore, then trotted out another of those sloppy platitudes. 'Those who can work, should work'. Again, what are the implications here? That some are 'choosing not to work' or 'choosing a lifestyle on benefits'? I am sick of hearing these hollow and brutal phrases that fail to address the fact that in order to have choice, there has to be an alternative. But with its aggressive pursuit of austerity, this government has taken away the alternatives of meaningful work with a decent income.
Who would choose to live on £71 a week (or even less if you're under 25), with threats of sanctions at every turn and cuts to housing benefits, not enough to eat, to keep warm or clothe themselves?
It's high time that the government and the media that they own took responsibility for their choice of words.

Friday, 12 October 2012

Professor Aylward claims many people are ill because there
are gains to be had for being ill. He thinks this explains why people stay on
benefits and adopt the ‘sick role’.That twaddle didn’t have much credence when it was first mooted decades
ago.

This is the psychological side of the biopsychosocial model.
Well, anybody who has studied psychology, as I have, know there’s hundreds of
research studies being published every day, so it wouldn’t be difficult to find
one to fit your agenda or the government’s – in this case, a sinister one to justify savage cuts to disability benefits, especially to those with
illnesses and sicknesses which Aylward, Waddell et al don’t consider to be
‘diseases’. But anybody with only the most rudimentary grasp of psychology
knows that psychological factors can affect the physical; that if you have a
disease or illness, the symptoms can be affected by external factors, stress,
depression etc.But you can’t go
from stating psychological factors play a part to then saying that
psychological is all there is. This just displays a lack of the most basic
scientific logic and is shoddy in the extreme.

But there’s also something warped about stating that sick people
stand to gain from financial security and thus need to be ‘disincentivised’
(horrid word); that somehow benefiting or needing a financial safety net is
wrong and that sick people should somehow choose to put themselves at financial
risk in preference.This isn’t
peculiar to ill people; everyone derives benefits from being financially better
off.We see the same sort of
language being bandied about all people on benefits, sick or the ‘fit’
unemployed.We hear the term
‘welfare dependent’. Let’s get one thing clear. Everyone is financially dependent. Everyone needs money to
buy the basics to survive.How is
it that we never hear about the tax-break dependent?Or the bonus-dependent?It is only the poor who are blamed for being ‘dependent’ on
something that is a requirement for us all to survive.Money. And enough of it.

Sunday, 5 August 2012

It isn’t work people are afraid of, if they are able to do
some, it’s the idea of being forced.Let’s substitute work for sex, for a moment. Sex is supposed to be
something freely given, an expression of love or lust between two people.For others, perhaps those who’ve been
in a relationship a long time, the spark may have disappeared and partners may
feel it a bit of a tedious duty, like others feel about having been in their
job for too long, but nevertheless, they go through the motions, for other
benefits.Those benefits in a
marriage, could be for security, safety, companionship.The same could be said of work, the job
may be stale, but there are benefits such as security, companionship, and of
course, there may be financial benefits.Maybe there aren’t, maybe the money isn’t worth it, just as in the relationship,
maybe it is dead, and time to move on.

But none of these cross a line.But forced work, is no difference to forced sex. Forced sex
has a name. Rape.If a person
doesn’t consent to have sex, then it is force.The raped person will feel abused, worthless, guilt, shame,
devalued, angry, powerless. Long term effects may include anxiety attacks,
panic attacks, agoraphobia, depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts. This is
what happens when people lose control of their lives, lose their autonomy, their right to say who
they sleep with and when.It is
now agreed that in a civilised society that this should be a person’s right, it
affords dignity, self-worth and self-respect. But hang on: shouldn’t this apply
to work as well?Work should be a
choice: something that affords dignity, self-worth and self-respect, shouldn’t
it? We’ve all heard the government rhetoric but on the sly they are using
compulsion and force.They aren’t
the stereotype rapists who jump at you and overpower you in a dark alley. They
are much too clever. They use subtle language, blackmail, power and authority
to get you into bed against your will.The results are the same and they are devastating. They take away your
autonomy, your ability to act freely, your capacity for choice, your capacity for
creativity, your capacity to make a simple decision.They incapacitate you, in fact.